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Southern Baptists Set for a Notable First

The Rev. Fred Luter Jr. got his start preaching on the streets of the Lower Ninth Ward.Credit
William Widmer for The New York Times

NEW ORLEANS — The Southern Baptist Convention, a denomination born in 1845 in defense of slavery and a spiritual home to white supremacists for much of the 20th century, is poised to elect its first African-American president.

The Rev. Fred Luter Jr., 55, a New Orleans pastor who got his start preaching on the streets of the Lower Ninth Ward, is expected to be the only candidate for office on Tuesday when Southern Baptists gather here for their annual meeting.

“That I can be president of the largest Protestant denomination in the country is unbelievable,” Mr. Luter said in an interview last week after one of his trademark cadenced sermons that drew “amens” from the predominantly black congregation.

His anticipated victory is being hailed as a milestone by white and black pastors alike in the convention, a grouping of 51,000 congregations with 16 million members, about a million of them black. Acutely aware of the nation’s changing demographics, the fiercely evangelical Southern Baptists have been working to draw in more black, Hispanic and Asian members, often by starting new churches in ethnically diverse urban areas in the country.

If, as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said of the nation’s churches, Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America, the Southern Baptists have carried a special burden, giving added resonance to this week’s election.

“Given the history of the convention, this is absolutely stunning,” said Michael O. Emerson, an expert on race and religion at Rice University.

Mr. Luter shares the Baptists’ firm rejection of abortion and same-sex marriage, but he preaches more about personal salvation than politics. Though he never completed seminary training, he is renowned for his rapid-fire sermons filled with wordplay and hypnotic repetition.

He has also impressed convention leaders by building what had been a dying congregation, that of the Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, into one of the state’s largest churches — and then rebuilding it after 2005, when Hurricane Katrina flooded the church in the low-income St. Roch neighborhood and sent most of its 8,000 members fleeing to other states.

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The Rev. Fred Luter Jr. addressing his congregation at Franklin Avenue Baptist Church last week.Credit
William Widmer for The New York Times

By example and through his ability to help shape the convention’s powerful missionary, policy and governing boards, Mr. Luter hopes he can give the minority recruitment goals a boost during his two-year term.

“I want to carry that torch,” he said. “When I go to evangelical conferences, I’ll be Exhibit A.”

But he is well aware that many black evangelicals remain skeptical of the Southern Baptists, preferring to remain in separate associations like the largely black National Baptist Convention U.S.A., which has 7.5 million members.

Southern Baptist leaders acknowledge having a lot to answer for. “We were a segregated, virtually all-white denomination as late as the 1960s,” said Richard Land, president of the convention’s policy arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Mr. Land is the convention’s most prominent public face, often speaking out pungently on conservative causes like opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and big government.

Mr. Land has been known for seeking racial reconciliation and was one of the authors of a resolution, adopted by the convention in 1995, that apologized for “historic acts of evil such as slavery” and for condoning “racism in our lifetime” and asked forgiveness “from our African-American brothers and sisters.”

But an episode this spring showed the lurking potential for racial misunderstandings. Many blacks were outraged when Mr. Land accused President Obama of trying to capitalize politically on the Trayvon Martin killing in Florida, called the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton “race hustlers,” and suggested that racial profiling was justified.

A few pastors in the convention called for Mr. Land’s punishment or removal, and in the end he apologized and was sharply reprimanded by the church. Mr. Luter, who worked with Mr. Land on the convention’s 1995 apology, called the comments an unfortunate aberration but said he hoped Mr. Land would stay on.

Dwight McKissic Sr., pastor at the predominantly black Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Tex., is one of those who reacted sharply to Mr. Land’s remarks, although he is a harsh critic of Mr. Obama himself on social issues. Mr. McKissic is both elated by the prospect of Mr. Luter’s ascension and guarded about its ultimate meaning. “The fact that his color is not a hindrance to his election is a wonderful thing,” he said. But he added that the presidency was largely ceremonial and that he longed “for the day when a person of color is named to head” one of the powerful boards or a major seminary.

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He hopes to boost minority recruitment for his denomination.Credit
William Widmer for The New York Times

Mr. Luter became a Southern Baptist almost by accident.

He grew up poor in a largely African-American world in the Lower Ninth, raised by his mother, a seamstress.

In 1977, at the age of 21, he almost died in a motorcycle crash and was born again, promising his life to God. He spent years preaching with a megaphone in the streets, where, he said, he developed his fast-talking style as he tried to catch the attention of annoyed passers-by.

In 1986, the Franklin Avenue church had dwindled to 50 members, mostly women and children. Noah Lewis, 62, who was on the selection committee for a new pastor, said its members were not satisfied with the seminary graduates they met. Then they saw Mr. Luter preaching at a revival.

“We wanted someone with the human touch, and Fred seemed to be the one,” Mr. Lewis said. “He didn’t talk above people’s heads or tell them what to do.” Hiring him was a risk because he had no seminary training, and Southern Baptist officials took some persuading, but Mr. Luter quickly built a following and was unusually successful at attracting men to church.

The rebuilt Franklin Avenue church now has 5,000 members, and virtually all of its $6 million budget comes from member tithes and offerings, said Mr. Lewis, who is chairman of the church board.

Mr. Luter, who sees himself as a bridge builder, often delivers guest sermons at Baptist churches around the country, including those with predominantly white congregations.

His first priorities as president, Mr. Luter said, will be the traditional Baptist goals of evangelizing, serving believers and providing disaster relief. But he also pledged to use his power of appointments to get more minorities on the governing boards.

Fearing a decline if they do not broaden their appeal, the Southern Baptists have worked to attract new members from all regions and from the minority groups that make up a growing share of the population. One in five of the convention’s congregations is mainly black, Hispanic or Asian, but these include many newer, smaller churches.

The selection of Mr. Luter is a marker in a historic transition for the convention, said R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. “It’s a shift from institutionalized racism and resistance to the civil rights movement among the vast majority of its members,” he said, “to the eager embrace of America as it is becoming.”

A version of this article appears in print on June 18, 2012, on page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: Southern Baptists Set for a Notable First. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe